SCJ 2021

The plaintiffs (daughter and her partner) sued the defendant (father) for specific performance or damages for breach of an alleged oral agreement to sell the family home to them.

The plaintiffs moved into the home and completed extensive renovations, believing they had an agreement to purchase the home at a discounted price and an extension of the closing date.

The court found that there was no enforceable oral agreement to transfer the property because there was no meeting of the minds on the fundamental term of price, nor was there an agreement to extend the closing date.

The claim for specific performance was dismissed as the property was not objectively unique.

However, the court awarded the plaintiffs $178,860.70 in damages for unjust enrichment to compensate them for the cost of the renovations that increased the value of the defendant's home.

The applicant, charged with multiple counts of robbery alongside a co-accused, applied for severance on the basis that a joint trial would infringe his right to be tried within a reasonable time.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, jury trials were suspended, causing significant delay.

The applicant was willing to re-elect for a judge-alone trial, while the co-accused was not.

The court granted the severance application, finding that while most factors favoured a joint trial, the potential injustice caused by the delay and mutually inconsistent elections warranted severance.

The accused, charged with numerous serious offences including conspiracy to commit murder and firearms offences, applied for interim release.

The accused proposed a release plan involving two sureties and GPS monitoring.

The court found the proposed plan insufficient, noting that the accused had previously breached bail conditions while under the supervision of one of the proposed sureties.

The court ordered the accused's detention on secondary grounds (risk of interfering with the administration of justice) and tertiary grounds (maintaining confidence in the administration of justice given the gravity of the offences and the strength of the Crown's case regarding threats).

The moving defendants (the Vuletics) sought a stay of the action, alleging an abuse of process because the plaintiffs (the Carotis) failed to immediately disclose a settlement agreement reached with a co-defendant (Kegalj).

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the settlement agreement did not entirely change the adversarial landscape.

The settling co-defendant was already adverse in interest to the moving defendants prior to the settlement, and the agreement merely required him to act as a truthful witness, which did not fundamentally alter the litigation's adversarial orientation.

The applicant sought costs following a successful motion for temporary child and spousal support.

The court found the applicant was largely successful and that her offers to settle were as or more favourable than the final order on most issues.

The court also found the respondent engaged in bad faith by unilaterally withdrawing funds from a joint account and unnecessarily seizing a vehicle from the parties' daughter.

The court awarded the applicant $25,000 in costs, with $15,000 payable forthwith and $10,000 to be set off against any future equalization payment owed by the applicant.

The parties settled a commercial tenancy dispute prior to the hearing of their application and cross-application.

However, the court issued an endorsement to address a false statement made by the applicant in a sworn affidavit regarding his travel to China.

After receiving an explanation that the applicant had indeed travelled to China but on a different airline and date than sworn, the court declined to pursue a contempt hearing.

The court cautioned that false statements in affidavits are taken seriously and could preclude equitable remedies such as relief against forfeiture.

In the context of CCAA proceedings for the Urbancorp entities, the Monitor brought a motion for an order approving and directing distributions from the sale of geothermal assets.

The court approved two unopposed distributions recommended by the Monitor in its Forty-Fifth Report, specifically regarding VII - Curve and UNKI.

The balance of the requested relief was adjourned to a date to be set.

Following a judgment on the merits, the successful defendant sought costs on a substantial indemnity basis due to the plaintiffs' and a non-party's vexatious conduct.

The court agreed that substantial indemnity costs were warranted, but reduced the requested amount by $15,000 to sanction the defendant's own witness for frustrating an examination.

Costs were fixed at $39,803.89, payable jointly and severally by the plaintiffs and the non-party.

The plaintiffs in a price-fixing class action regarding electrolytic capacitors moved for court approval of a $5.9 million settlement with the Panasonic defendants, as well as approval of class counsel fees and disbursements.

The court found the settlement, which included significant cooperation from the settling defendants, to be fair, reasonable, and in the best interests of the class.

The court also approved the retainer agreements and the requested class counsel fees of $1,487,500 (25% of the settlement) and disbursements of $141,866.96, noting the complexity and risk of the litigation.

Following a jury verdict finding the applicant guilty of firearms and drug offences, the applicant brought a post-verdict application for a stay of proceedings under s. 7 and s. 24(1) of the Charter.

The applicant alleged that a police officer breached an order excluding witnesses and lied about it, amounting to an abuse of process.

The court dismissed the application, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the application post-verdict because the alleged conduct engaged trial fairness concerns and should have been raised before the verdict.

In the alternative, the court found as a fact that the officer did not breach the order or lie.

A law firm brought an application for an interpleader order to pay funds held in escrow into court, while a condominium corporation brought a cross-application seeking a mandatory injunction to force the law firm to pay the funds to the City of Toronto for property tax arrears pursuant to a settlement agreement.

The court dismissed the law firm's application, finding it could not use interpleader rules to protect itself from a potential breach of its own undertaking.

The court also dismissed the condominium corporation's application, finding it inappropriate to proceed by way of application without demonstrating a proper legal basis for the requested injunctive relief.

The accused, charged with sexual offences, brought a Charter motion challenging the constitutionality of sections 278.92 and 278.94 of the Criminal Code.

These provisions govern the admissibility of records in the accused's possession, such as the complainant's social media messages.

The court applied the 'plainly wrong' test to a recent coordinate jurisdiction decision, R. v. Reddick, which had struck down the provisions.

Finding that Reddick was not plainly wrong, the court followed it and declared sections 278.92 and 278.94 unconstitutional and of no force or effect.

Following the dismissal of the applicant's motion for access to her granddaughter, the respondent sought full indemnity costs of $5,968.

The court found that while the applicant acted unreasonably in bringing the motion close to trial, she did not act in bad faith.

Applying the principles of reasonableness and proportionality under the Family Law Rules, the court rejected the claim for full indemnity costs, deducted fees unrelated to the motion, and awarded the respondent partial indemnity costs fixed at $2,250.

The plaintiff in a class action alleging a price-fixing conspiracy regarding film capacitors moved for approval of a settlement with the Panasonic defendants and for approval of class counsel fees.

The court found the $1.35 million settlement, which included valuable cooperation from the settling defendants, to be fair and reasonable despite being heavily discounted from the estimated exposure.

The court also approved the requested class counsel fees of 25% of the settlement, but ordered the payment to be split into two installments to incentivize counsel to advance the litigation more expeditiously.

The applicant sought to be appointed as Estate Trustee without a bond for the estate of her former stepfather, who died intestate.

The deceased had no spouse, children, or known next of kin.

The court found that the applicant, as the daughter of a former common-law partner, did not qualify as an heir under the Succession Law Reform Act.

The motion was dismissed and the matter was referred to the Public Guardian and Trustee for investigation.

The applicant brought a motion for a Certificate of Pending Litigation (CPL), a preservation order, and expanded financial disclosure in a family law proceeding following a long marriage.

The applicant alleged the respondent unilaterally sold a jointly acquired rental property and transferred funds to purchase a new property in his sole name, while failing to provide adequate financial disclosure.

The court granted the CPL, finding a reasonable claim for a constructive trust, and issued a preservation order under sections 12 and 40 of the Family Law Act to prevent the dissipation of assets.

The court also ordered the respondent to provide detailed financial disclosure, noting his previous non-compliance had frustrated the progress of the case.

The accused, on trial for second-degree murder and attempted murder during the COVID-19 pandemic, brought a motion requesting that civilian witnesses testify without masks so their demeanour could be assessed.

The trial judge applied the framework from R. v. S. (N.) to balance the accused's fair trial rights against the public health interest in limiting virus transmission.

The court held that requiring witnesses to remain masked did not create a serious risk to trial fairness, as demeanour is not determinative of credibility.

The court further noted that testimony by videoconference was a reasonable alternative that accommodated both interests.

The motion was dismissed, and witnesses were directed to remain masked.

The defendant brought a motion under Rule 31.11(6) to read in the discovery transcripts of its deceased corporate representative.

In response, the plaintiff brought a cross-motion seeking production of communications between the deceased representative, the defendant, and its lawyers, as well as documents relating to a consulting agreement between the representative and the defendant.

The court dismissed the request for general communications, finding it was too late to seek discovery documents and that the communications were privileged.

However, the court ordered the production of documents relating to the formation of the consulting agreement, as they were relevant to the credibility of the deceased witness's evidence for the pending Rule 31.11(6) motion.

The moving party brought a motion to strike the responding party's pleadings and for costs due to her failure to comply with a prior disclosure order.

The court found that the responding party had disobeyed the order and that her non-compliance was willful, despite her claims that her former lawyer was responsible.

However, the court concluded that striking pleadings is a remedy of last resort and the non-compliance was not egregious enough to warrant such a drastic measure.

The court dismissed the request to strike pleadings but ordered the responding party to pay $5,000 in costs and to produce the remaining outstanding disclosure forthwith.

The parties, former law partners, brought cross-motions regarding the dissolution of their partnership and the winding up of their jointly owned corporation.

The defendant sought partial summary judgment on consent for a declaration of dissolution and an accounting, which the court granted, directing a reference.

The plaintiffs sought leave to amend their statement of claim to request a winding up of the corporation and a forced sale of the defendant's shares rather than the sale of the corporation's building.

The court allowed the amendments, finding them not untenable in law, and ordered the winding up of the corporation on consent.